When I appeared on Fox's Sean Hannity Show last week, the opposing guest charged the Republican Party of trying to deny blacks and other minorities the right to vote by requiring voter ID. As you know the interview was so short and her comments were so long, that I barely got a word in edge-wise. So I decided to give you just a brief history of Democrats and Blacks as it pertains to the subject of voting and their legacy of supporting of black candidates.
1. It was the Democrats that passed legislation under Jim Crow that prohibited blacks from running for offices in Democratic primaries in the South.
2. It was Democrats that denied blacks the right to vote in the South
3. When blacks insisted on voting anyway (for Republicans), they were threatened, beaten and killed - many times their homes were burned down the day before the elections
4. Democrats also imposed Poll Taxes and instituted test for Negroes. If the Negro failed the test, they weren't allowed to vote. Even though blacks passed the test, the persons supervising the voting place would tell them that they failed.
5. Blacks in the South started running for office on the Democratic ticket, only because they wanted to reduce the number of white racist Democratic candidates (from the South) who would vote or had a track record of voting against Civil Rights legislation. Most of this started with Fannie Lou Hamer in 1964 (a member of the SNCC), who started the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and infilitrated the Democratic Convention and asked to be seat as delegates. President Johnson used J. Edgar Hoover and Dr. King to stop her.
6. The first black elected from the South on a Democratic ticket (since Reconstruction), was Barbara Jordan of Texas in 1973, almost 10 years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed.
7. Most of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus were voted in - in predominately black Congressional Districts, not predominately white Democratic district.
8. Democrats today still have a track record of trying to keep black Democrats from gaining positions of power or positions that they feel whites should occupy.
a. In 2002 President Bill Clinton, went behind Mayor Maynard Jackson's back to get Terry McAuliffe the votes to become head of the Democratic National Committee
b. In 2005 Congressman Gregory Meeks of New York was defeated in his effort to become the Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee (they elected Mike Honda of Cal.)
c. In 2006 the Democratic National Committee backed Ben Cardin over Kwesi Mfume for the Senate seat in Maryland. Mfume lost.
d. In 2008 Bill Clinton and other leading Democrats supported the Independent Candidate (Charlie Crist) in Flordia over Kendrick Meek for the Flordia Senate seat.
e. In 2009 Democrats pressured Senator Roland Burris of Chicago to resign his Senate seat before he was convicted of any wrong.
f. In 2010 Democrats placed so much pressure on Governor David Paterson, that he decided not to re-run for the governor's seat
g. In 2011 Democrats allowed Donna Brazille to occupy the DNC Chair position only temporarily until they chose Debbie Wasserman Schultz to head the DNC
Now tell me who has the track record of trying to deny blacks their right to vote and trying to keep blacks out of office?